Two Wonderlands
by Crazii Choco
Summary: It has been just over 3 years since Alice's release from the Rutledge Asylum and the barbed chains of a twisted Wonderland. She is now 25 years old, and her life feels more real, focused and enlightened. But is that what she really wants?
1. Chapter I

January 1878. It has been just over 3 years since Alice's release from Rutledge Asylum and the barbed chains of a twisted Wonderland. She is now 25 years old, and her life feels… well, more real, more focused, more enlightened now. She remembers a time before when she felt the same way for 12 years – but that feeling turned to nothing but flames, ashes and the constant image of the grey, stone asylum ceiling above her head.

Every morning since her release, for almost a year, the first opening of her eyes triggered a thankfulness that felt like warm syrup in her stomach – instead of the monotonous blur that had taken up the previous 10 years, she awoke to the pink plaster of her Aunt's second bedroom.

"What a beautiful morning," Auntie Liddell would sigh as she entered Alice's room, equipped with a tray holding a large porcelain teapot, a cup and a small plate of Rich Tea Biscuits. Sometimes the teapot had to be replaced with a glass of juice when Alice was feeling twitches of Wonderland-anxiety. Auntie Liddell understood this, though, and she was always on time to greet Alice in the mornings.

She wouldn't just comment on the morning sunshine like so, though – she'd be even sweeter than that. She'd place the tray in front of her niece and tell her that she made the morning all the more beautiful, before planting a quick kiss on her forehead.

Alice didn't mind being treated like a child – she'd lost quite a few years of her pre-adult youth anyway. She tried not to think about how they could have been spent outside a lunatic asylum instead of in one: having a first sleepover to celebrate her 13th birthday (if her parents had let her) – starting menstruation at home (and not in front of psychiatrists) – having a handsome boy around to admire – even having her first kiss?

And the later restraints of wonderland had stopped these normal adolescent experiences happening all the more. By the time she was ordered to go to Wonderland, she was almost 18, and her mind lusted to know what was going on in the real world. She had spent most of her adolescent years in isolation, and then she had to deal with the messed-up non-human creatures of a place that had become almost alien to her. No wonder she so warmly welcomed Auntie Liddell's hospitality after the ordeal she'd been through!

But these months of being cared for like her parents would've continued to began to grate slightly on 22-year-old Alice – in the early summer of 1875, Auntie Liddell began taking Alice out for walks to the town, as she now felt ready to face the outside. Her green eyes widened at the sights in the same way she had reacted to the reversed Wonderland – so many people, all going about their daily business. She'd not seen such a normal sight in so long. The women wore tea gowns, and the men wore frock coats. All Alice's eyes had been used to for a while were the white of Doctor's robes and hearts and clubs splattered with blood. She acknowledged the cobbled grounds beneath her feet, with carriages led by horses rattling upon them. The sound was like a beautiful melody compared to the years of silence at the asylum, and the static atmosphere of evil the Red Queen had blanketed over Wonderland.

It had been a perfect day to come out – not a cloud in the sky, very much a reflection of the Wonderland Alice adored – although she didn't feel like this wonderland was any less significant than the one she visited in her mind. It might've been missing the rolling hills carpeted with emerald grass, patchworked with rainbows of flowers, the evergreen trees, the sparkling waters and the many delightful inhabitants of Alice's Wonderland, but this was real, and that world wasn't. It was the world she'd been born into, and she'd found Wonderland in her childhood at a very young age. It was a child's dream, and with every step she took through the town Alice felt like she was growing out of it. These were people surrounding her, her own species, and they weren't doctors or White Rabbits. This was an experience she'd hardly had before in her life, being exposed to so much human civilization, and she was breathing in every inch of it.

"Why look, Alice, a confectionery shop!" Auntie Liddell suddenly exclaimed, shaking her niece from her bedazzled state. Alice glanced to the left, trying to see what a confectionery shop looked like. She'd completely missed her Aunt's pointing finger to the right.

"Over here, my sweet!"

And the shop did look very sweet indeed. Through the glass windows candies of all varieties glistened invitingly, stacked to the very brims of their jars. Alice couldn't name many of them – liquorice comfits, lemon sours and dolly mixture were the only ones that stood out. She'd never been a huge fan of sweets, as she once told Cheshire Cat – her parents had taught her not to follow in her older sister's steps and develop black, crumbling teeth like she once had.

But still she followed her candy-toothed Aunt into the little shop, and gazed at the shelves lined with many more jars, big and small, filled with thousands of multi-coloured pebbles, cubes, spheres and so on. She wondered what would happen if she were to run around in circles until eventually she'd get dizzy and collapse into the shelves – the jars would spill over and a tide of sugary rainbow would pour over her face, into her mouth, and the stickier pieces would get stuck in her hair and all in the lace of her dress and on the bottom of her shoes and then Mummy would get very cross indeed..

"You looking for some peppermint humbugs, my love?"

The voice had come from the wooden counter just behind Alice. She turned around, and felt a sensation she'd never felt before.

As soon as she caught sight of the person sitting in front of her, they made her feel once again what she'd felt earlier – the mature reality she was meant to be in. How someone her age was _meant_ to act. However, the person standing next to the counter, beaming, the one who'd taken her into the sweetshop, was making her feel like she was 9 years old again. It felt like the earth had literally cracked open between the two people.

The subject who was sitting behind the counter, well, he was the first male she'd ever seen in her life that was anywhere near her age. And why he made her feel so strongly like a 22-year-old, well, she just couldn't put her finger on it.

"Do you want me to help you find them, dear?" Auntie Liddell offered, still beaming.

It was the question that posed the moment of truth. Was Alice still a child, stuck in the age prior to her trauma forever? Or was she a woman now, and she could very much make her own decisions?

"No, thankyou… After all, I think that's this gentleman's job."

"Oh, alright then, sweetheart." Auntie Liddell's smile faded a little, although she still looked pleased for Alice. The crack in the earth between her and the gentleman behind the counter grew much wider as Alice continued to keep eye contact with him.


	2. Chapter II

His name was Jack Statham. He was 29 years of age, and lived directly above his confectionery shop. He hardly went out, for he worked there every day except Sunday. Although he was fond of sweets, he dreamed of something much more than the 4 walls of jars he had to face every day.

That day in early summer his life of tediousness had been delightfully interrupted by the entrance of a particular customer – a very beautiful customer indeed. A girl wearing a blue satin dress with a pinafore; he'd never seen that kind of dress around at all. It added even more colour to the whole shop, and when she turned around her face completed the picture – huge, glittering, almond-shaped emerald eyes set in a pale complexion – the cutest little nose and pink lips – and a sleek head of hair, brown as a berry, just scraping her shoulders.

Her overall look was completely bewitching to Jack; she was taller than the average woman, too. He could not find any faults in her – the only problem niggling at his brain at that moment was that he needed to know her name.

She had asked him to show her where the peppermint humbugs were. They had only been directly behind her and a few shelves up, but Jack wasn't going to miss out on this opportunity to talk to her properly – when life gives you lemons, make lemon sherbet!

"Well, y'see, all the humbugs occupy one shelf.." he said jollily, standing up from behind the counter and motioning his hand behind the girl's back to make her turn. She did so, and her eyes started searching, but Jack had a feeling she didn't care too much for the humbugs. He really hoped that was the case, after the way she'd looked into his eyes at the counter.

"..Up here!" he reached up and grabbed a long jar crammed with black-and-white striped things. The girl's eyes were now focused back on his.

"So, there's more than one type of _humbug?_" her eyes seemed to sparkle, and the corner of her mouth twitched into a smirk. This girl's confidence was blinding.

Both of them seemed to had forgotten all about the older woman she came in with, until she piped up in the background.

"Now, now, Alice.."

So t_hat _was her name, Jack thought. Alice. It suited her perfectly, like every trait she flaunted. He was slightly distracted by the older woman, though – he hoped she wasn't Alice's mother.

"It's okay, Auntie," Alice replied, and Jack mentally sighed with relief, "I only want the peppermint ones!"

Jack knew her Aunt was disapproving not because of Alice being offered so many sweets, but because she appeared to be flirting with him. He decided it was time to take the humbugs to the counter.

Alice looked to her Aunt.

"Do you have any pennies, Auntie? I didn't bring any."

"Yes…" she replied, although she didn't sound happy about it. She shuffled around in her handbag, and pulled out some coins.

Jack and Alice exchanged the goods in silence, knowing they had to act on their best behaviour in front of the Sour Lemon. The only word that broke the silence was Alice's "thank you" as Jack handed her the jar.

"Now come on, we better be going home." Her Aunt instructed, and Alice immediately turned away from Jack. She felt great guilt for the few seconds she was walking to the door for not even saying goodbye, but luckily her Aunt had stomped out swiftly enough to miss the cheeky smile and few-finger wave Alice gave him before exiting.

* * *

><p>One of the main reasons behind Alice's eventual drift from her Aunt was because she disliked Jack – that afternoon when they got home she had showed her disapproval by telling her niece "You need to explore a man before deciding you've fallen in love, Alice.. I just don't think a confectionary shop boy is good enough for a stunning, accomplished girl like you."<p>

She loved her Aunt and appreciated her advice, but it seemed to prick her like rose thorns. She was 22 years old, and had never had a chance to get close to a boy before. It was like her whole life was filled with constraints – whenever she was about to fly, something would come along and snap her wings in half. She'd never felt more ready to set off, the opportunity to have a lover had never been more open – and so she decided she wouldn't let Auntie Liddell tamper with her wings.

How Alice came to learn about Jack, his age and his lifestyle was through her own independent trips into town – her Aunt suffered from tendonitis and some days it was worse than others, so Alice offered to carry out errands for her. Auntie Liddell was reluctant at first, but, knowing she couldn't move freely and there were needs to be met, she let Alice be the one to get the meat and groceries. She always let off a subtle warning, though – "Remember Alice, we don't need any sweets!"

The more times she said it, the less effect it had on Alice – like the pain of wearing new shoes for the first few days, eventually the blisters soothed and Alice was able to walk freely. She went back to the confectionary shop several times and soon it became obvious that she wasn't there for peppermint humbugs.

She did it teasingly, sometimes going once a week or every fortnight depending on the condition of her Aunt's feet – it wasn't until the sixth time or so that Jack mustered up the courage to ask her to the park with him. That was a task too tricky for Alice to carry out; it happened at a time Auntie Liddell wasn't suffering so much, and so they planned to meet at night instead. I know, I know - the traditional storyline of restricted teens climbing out their windows when their parents are asleep to meet their forbidden lover – well, that's what Alice did. Even though she wasn't a teenager, and it was her Aunt she was hiding him from; she was doing things each day she missed out on in the past, and it felt like a beautiful rush. It was daring and frightening, like the slaying of the beasts of Wonderland – but this time, she was free and she was enjoying that feeling rather than despising it.

She was discovering the real world.


	3. Chapter III

To get swiftly to where we are now, January 1878, the years in-between must be summed up by their most crucial happenings. In August 1875 Alice's Aunt found out about her visiting Jack and showed a side Alice had never seen before in her life – she didn't just disapprove as she had done before; she locked her niece in her bedroom, and forced her to play with the tea-sets she had given her as a child, screeching "_I am only doing what your Mother and Father would've wanted!"_. Auntie Liddell was growing old, and her worsening tendonitis and being a widow for nearly 10 years was taking a toll on her sanity. Alice couldn't handle any more madness in her life, and so a fortnight later and on the night of her 23rd birthday, the arm of a wax doll became a crowbar and she used it to pry off the wooden door bars which were keeping her imprisoned. She stole all of her Aunt's secret money stash and fled from the home which had almost turned into a second asylum.

She called to Jack outside the confectionary shop.

"Jack! Are you awake? It's me! It's Alice!"

Immediately the tiny window above the shop scraped open and the handsome figure appeared.

"Alice! My beauty! Where have you been? I've been waiting every day-"

"-Come down Jack!"

"Come down? What's wrong, my sweet?"

"No time to talk. Just come with me now, please!"

And so Jack obeyed the orders of the woman he loved, and they hitched a ride on a horse and carriage to the nearest railway station. They travelled as far as the train would go, from West Kensington to the small village of Harefield, about twenty miles from the centre of London. They spent the night together in a crooked hotel, their first night in a bed together, and also the night that Alice lost her virginity.

The next few days were not so rushed –knowing they were now safe, the couple took walks together in the green countryside surrounding Harefield, and Jack decided he was in love.

"You wanted to run away to somewhere better, didn't you?" he asked Alice one afternoon, as they travelled up a winding path in a field full of dewy grass that glinted in the sunlight.

Alice glanced at him, and then looked down again due to the sun almost blinding her.

"You know that, Jack."

"Well… how about here?"

She looked at him again through squinted eyes.

"What do you mean?"

"Why don't we stay here? It's perfect."

Their short time in Harefield had been one that could convince any couple to live there – the village was quaint, the inhabitants friendly, and not a day had they seen a cloud. But for some reason, it felt even more homely to them – the place could not be any more perfect to Jack or Alice. But Jack, especially, was taking a liking to his new surroundings – walls of candy were already becoming a crumbling distant memory to him, and he was already planning a life ahead with Alice.

Once they found their own cottage together, Jack asked Alice to marry him. They wedded on a bright February day in 1876, and Jack was overjoyed to discover his wife was pregnant a few weeks later. He'd wanted to find the perfect spouse and start a family ever since he left home years ago, so he couldn't help but marvel at his dreams unravelling right before his eyes. Alice was doing what she'd always wanted, too – finally living a normal life, and she felt great excitement at the prospect of having a child.

Lydia Statham was born on June 28th, 1876 – two weeks later than expected. She had been conceived on the first night Jack and Alice had arrived in Harefield, and so should've been a mid-June baby, but she had decided to stay in the womb a little longer and trouble Alice by gifting her with stifling cramps and a horribly bulbous figure.

As soon as Alice set eyes upon her daughter's face, though, she knew she had been worth the extra fortnight of pain. Jack and his wife gazed in awe as their child opened her eyes for the first time – blinding emerald, just like her Mother's, and the few chocolate wisps of hair on the scalp indicated that she had chosen not to inherit Jack's sandy-coloured locks. She was definitely Alice's child, and Alice couldn't believe how beautiful she was.

In the real world, though, beauty only lasts so long…


	4. Chapter IV

Hey everyone! Thanks for your awesome reviews and for reading my story guys, it really does mean a lot and I'm really enjoying writing this at the mo :)! OMG! Madness Returns comes out in the UK tomorrow (I got it pre-ordered ;D)! I seriously can't wait!

Anyway, here's the 4th Chapter... And if you don't figure it out, it's now January 1878, and we are now in the PRESENT time in Alice's life!

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><p>Alice Statham was awoken by the sounds of her little girl babbling crazily – it wasn't anything new, this had been happening for months now that her one-and-a-half year old daughter was learning to string sentences together.<p>

"Dad-dy! Dol-ly! Mum, ma, da…"

Alice sighed and rubbed her eyes, whilst blinking away the sticky cloud of mucus coating her vision.

"…It's all right, sweetheart…" she yawned drowsily.

Once the mucus had cleared, she forced her head off her pillow to look at her daughter. Lydia was standing up in her cot as usual, grinning a giddy two-toothed grin at her mother and somewhat posing in her white cotton gown.

"I think you know how special you are, don't you?"

"Mama!"

Alice forced herself out of bed and went over to Lydia. She lifted her up and out of her cot, and whilst holding her tight against her hip, the two turned to look at Daddy, who was still sleeping like a tranquilized horse. Speaking of horses, she needed to wake him up in about half an hour so he could get ready for another day of being a carriageman.

"Mummy will brew Daddy some tea, and then I'll get some warm milk for you."

"Bunny!"

Alice turned and gently put her child back into her cot, wondering how Jack slept through her volatile (and rather loud) proclamations. She sometimes wished she was a deep sleeper like her husband… oh how she'd be thankful for just one more hour of sleep each day!

But nothing could be done about that, and there were duties to attend to. Alice needed to be there to wake her husband up and make him tea, otherwise he'd be late for work and would feel awfully sluggish for the entire day. So she put on her pleasing-wife smile and went downstairs to start heating up the stove.

* * *

><p>Jack worked for 12 hours each day, longer than he had done when he owned the confectionary shop. Alice and him had agreed that he needed to start working again when the pile of money they'd stolen from Auntie Liddell and his past wages started to wear thin – they couldn't support their family, and especially not Lydia, if the man of the house wasn't working. And so about 8 months ago, Jack got a job as a horse-and-carriage driver to serve the locals who wanted to get around Harefield.<p>

The wages were decent, especially if he transported middle-class families – it was enough for the Statham family to live off. They were technically of lower-class status now, but that was all they could do about it. Jack seemed to cope with it better than his wife, as he'd grown up seeing his family in rags and his father had worked as a miner – but Alice wasn't so used to the sight of a working-class house and saw it as quite a dramatic change to the middle-class lifestyle she'd lived in for the first 12 years of her life… Or at least, what she could remember of those 12 years.

The surprising thing was, she could remember quite a lot more about her home life when she was younger than she had been able to just a few years ago. Now that she was back in a house (and not an asylum or the burning mountains of Wonderland) and living a 'normal' life like the one she had known a long time ago, her brain had been somewhat enlightened to recall connections between this life and the one before all the torment. It was like a fog was clearing, and the fog caused by the horrific years in-between seemed almost like a completely different lifetime to this one.

This lifetime revolved around her daughter, her husband and their cottage. As already made obvious, every morning after waking up Alice would make sure her husband was awake, and then she'd bring him tea and warm up milk for Lydia. The rest of her day duties went something like this – let's put everything into a list, shall we?

Between 4-7am: Wake up/get woken up by Lydia's babbling

7-8am: If Jack is still asleep, wait until the right time to wake him up, unless it's already that time (although it rarely is)

7:30am: Brew tea for Jack and make warm milk for Lydia (somewhere inbetween these 3 tasks, get dressed and put on apron)

7:35am: Make sure fire is still burning under stove, and begin to cook breakfast

7:40am: Make sure all dishes are clean, set the table, get Lydia's high-chair

7:45am: Finish cooking breakfast – by the time it's done Jack should be dressed and ready, so go and make sure Lydia is ready too and get them both to the table

7:52am: Clear dishes once everyone has eaten

7:54am: Fill dishpan over stove with water and begin to wash utensils – silverware first, then glassware, then dishware, then the dirtier things

8:00am: Wish goodbye to Jack as he sets off to work and then take Lydia into the living-room (also known as the play-room, in which there is a toy box)

8:02am: Make sure the stove is wiped clean, that all the surfaces are spic n' span, and that the floor is swept, whilst occasionally checking on Lydia

8:20am: Check if there is any laundry that needs to be washed and dried (if it's Laundry Monday, then definitely)

8:23am: If there are any articles of clothing to wash at all, make sure they are rinsed, then wrung, then boiled, then cold-rinsed, then wrung again, and then set out on the clothesline to dry, whilst checking on Lydia still

10:30am: Read to and play with Lydia

11:00am: Put Lydia back in her cot for a nap

11:02am: Cook baked apples or make cookies for an early lunch, depending on what day it is, sometimes sharing cookies with Lydia

11:30am: After eating and cleaning, use leftover wash-water to clean the laundry floor or scrub the doorstep

12:00am: And half the day isn't even over yet, but there's many more back-breaking tasks that Alice has to go through in order to earn her badge as a loving and caring housewife. They won't be listed, though, as the reader of this list is probably bored out of their wits by now.

This was Alice's life, every day, every week, and had been for almost a year now. Hard to believe, but it was a 'normal' life for any woman of the 19th Century, and that's what Alice had been striving for ever since she met Jack.

But as she placed the kettle over the stove that morning, like most other days, something didn't feel complete. She had a daughter, the perfect husband, she was happy… but somewhere in her mind, there was a tiny piece of jigsaw coming loose from the colourful puzzle that was once known as Alice Liddell.

She just got on with making the tea and tried her best to ignore it.


	5. Chapter V

Hey guys, sorry this chapter's pretty late, I got quite sidetracked this week... mainly with THE NEW ALICE GAME! I love it so much, what do you guys think of it compared to the first American McGee's? Let me know if you review ^^

Anyway, I have a feeling you guys are gonna like this one... hope you do!

* * *

><p>A month passed, and nothing changed.<p>

One evening, when Lydia was asleep, Jack arrived home from work, stood behind his wife and draped his arms around her waist. She was scrubbing some dishes ready for dinner.

"Alice Statham…" he murmured into her left ear, "…Do you love our daughter?"

"Of course I do, Jack!" she proclaimed, her eyes still on the plates, "You know that."

"And if we had another child, would you love them too?"

His fingertips suddenly felt like stinging nettles. Alice literally flinched.

"Are you alright, sweet?"

She'd only moved about an inch to the side, but she now had her arms wrapped tightly around her stomach. She turned around to face her husband.

"I'm fine, just.. feeling a little sick, I think I need to go to the bathroom-" she hurried out the room and upstairs, the nettle stings still throbbing around her waistline. Jack looked at the dishes, then back to where she'd ran off.

"You're going to start the cooking when you're done, aren't you..? I'm starving!"

She spent the rest of evening in silence. She had not ran to the bathroom to vomit, but because she had felt totally overwhelmed – she was exhausted, and she didn't even have much time to care for Lydia among her duties, let alone another child. The pieces of the Alice Liddell puzzle had begun detaching rapidly over the past month, and whirling around madly in the windmill of her mind. Her husband's hands really had felt as sharp as the nettle venom that time she fell into a bush when she was 8 years old – she feared it was the first sign she was starting to go crazy again.

Her silence very much felt like the catatonic period in the asylum, too. She had not been this quiet or experienced so much silence since those first years, so it felt quite unsettling throughout the night. Jack had become unnerved by her keeping schtum, and found it no use to ask her anything. He'd decided to try again in the morning.

In this dead hush of the night, Alice Liddell lay awake under her and Jack's blanket, her eyes wide open as they had been for hours now. All she could hear was the faint ticking of the oak wall clock, accompanied by Jack's gentle, piggy snores and Lydia's breath whistling through the few teeth she had whilst she slept. Alice didn't care what the time was, or about the fact she wasn't going back to sleep any time soon.

Another twenty minutes of listening to the same ensemble and something decided it was time for her to get out of bed. She slid upwards, almost in liquid motion, and lifted her feet one at a time onto the wooden floorboards below. She stood up, the boards creaking slightly, and slowly made her way over to Lydia's cot.

She peered inside, and found her beautiful daughter sleeping peacefully on her side. Alice decided she'd stay here for a while, watching her, and listening to the rhythm of her whistling breath.

After a couple of minutes, it was beginning to make Alice drowsy – watching babies sleeping was always somewhat soothing – but her brain sparked up again when she heard her child doing something other than whistling.

Lydia appeared to be talking in her sleep – "Ba, ba, ba…" she mumbled softly. Alice smiled. But suddenly, a new consonant seemed to be appear on the horizon of Lydia's vocabulary…

"Ba, ba.. Ca, ca, ca, ca.."

She hadn't been able to pronounce her C's yet – she kept repeating it over and over in her slumbered state, until Lydia decided to go one step further and impress her mother even more.

"Ca, ca, ca, Cat, Cat, Cat, Cat.."

Alice's eyes widened in amazement. A child who could formulate new words in her sleep! It seemed too complex to be real.

And when she realized that her daughter's utterings were becoming in-sync with those of the clock's ticking, she realized it couldn't be real. She must've been in a dream. But she could still feel the floorboards firmly beneath her feet, she could still feel the cot rocking beneath her fingertips – and she could see Lydia turning to face her, her eyes opening, her mouth bursting into a grin, and suddenly she no longer had just the two front teeth – her mouth was crammed with dazzling, white fangs, so many that it looked like her lips were about to split. The smile kept getting wider and wider, her cheeks completely taken over and her eyes beginning to stretch along with them. Alice watched in horror as silver hairs sprouted out of nowhere, smothering her child's face in a thick, shiny coat, and as her razor-sharp eyes faded from green to amber. Her pupils thinned until they were slits and her nose morphed into a squashed pink button between the horrific grin and the two evil gems staring at her Mother out of the cot. Not to mention, Lydia was now flaunting a pair of rather manky, ginormous ears, a golden ring dangling from one of them, to add the final touch.

Then it spoke, in that cunning, silky smooth drawl you could never, ever mistake.

"…_You called?"_

Now Alice really did feel like vomiting.


	6. Chapter VI

Cheshire Cat's head detached itself from Lydia's body, floated up toward the ceiling and then descended down next to the wardrobe. Alice was still too preoccupied with watching this nightmare to notice that Lydia's head was back on her shoulders, and no harm had been done to her.

One by one, the crooked bones of Cheshire's body formed out of nowhere and clanked into place underneath his still-grinning face – his neck first, then his spiky shoulders, then his bird chest, and limbs – and lastly his purely skeletal tail, sounding like a xylophone as each segment joined rapidly onto one another. His whole internal structure was shrowded in a shimmering papery skin, decorated with inky tattoos splattered on the arms and legs. As usual, the skin was so thin his skeleton and some organs were obvious to anyone who saw him. Alice had never been able to stare at him for too long.

"Why so flabbergasted, Missy? You're the one who _asked for me..." _Cheshire snarled, his eyes lighting up with delight, but then he started looking himself up and down, "…It's not my bones starting to poke out, is it? You know how dreadfully I'm ageing."

But neither of those comments applied to Alice in explaining her flabbergasted-ness. She hadn't asked for him, nor were his bones in any place they weren't supposed to be. Why was he here, at this time, of all times? It was the first time she'd seen him in over three years.

"Cat.. what are you doing here? Can you please explain now, or leave and come back another time? It's so late at night, and I need to go back to bed!" She tried to keep her voice low and hushed so as not to wake Jack or Lydia, but also felt she needed to exaggerate how puzzled – and tired – she was feeling.

"You know better than I do why I'm here, Alice… Or have you yet to realize?"

"What? Realize _what?_"

"…Let's discuss it over a cup of tea, shall we? That way your precious… _pedigree_… won't be disturbed." His teeth glinted cheekily as his grin grew in pride of his remark.

"_Pedigree? _Well, your attitude certainly hasn't changed!"

"And yours is forever changing, my dear. In fact, I might have caught you at the sanest time in your life... Although if I'm here, that can't mean you're feeling completely tip-top."

Alice sighed.

"Let's just go downstairs, and talk there instead."

* * *

><p>It wasn't a dream anymore. Cheshire Cat was back, and it was definitely him who was currently sitting there, head down, lapping out of a cup of tea which Alice had assembled especially for him on the living-room carpet. Alice knew he was a figment of her own imagination, but he'd always been real to her, and he was there to help her fit the missing pieces of her mind back together again… if he could find them.<p>

She sat down in the arm-chair, her own cup in her hand.

"So.. what's wrong with me?" she asked, and sternly waited for a reply.

It was about ten seconds before Cat answered her question. He was very much enjoying the tea, and once he'd stopped lapping, he tried his best to lick clean his wet, dripping muzzle before he spoke.

"You're bored, Alice."

"What?"

"Bored and exhausted."

"I understand why I might be exhausted, but how can I be bored when there's so much to do every day? I have too much to put my mind to, to ever lose focus or interest."

"Well, you seem to have lost focus this evening."

He returned to his tea, still not really explaining anything. Alice was surprised he hadn't already finished it from the rate he'd been going at it. Suddenly, she remembered – what Jack had said, and the feeling he'd given her when putting his fingers on her waist!

"Cat, were you the stinging nettles?"

He stopped drinking again. Now he was the one looking puzzled.

"_What?_"

"When Jack came home from work last night, he told me he wanted another child – and when he put his hands on me, they scolded me and stung me like nettles!"

"I'm assuming Jack is your _significant other_. Am I right in thinking that?"

"Yes, my husband, who's asleep upstairs."

"Why did his hands scold you, Alice?"

"I have no idea! He just asked me about whether I'd love another child as much as our Lydia, and then when he touched me, it felt like his fingers were on fire."

"Geronimo."

"What? Why are you saying 'Geronimo'?"

"It means you've realized what's making you so bored and exhausted, Alice – your Husband. I thought just as much, seeing your face over your daughter's cot; you're tired of being a wife, tired of being a slave to your family. And you've only been married to him for nearly 2 years-"

"I'm not a slave to my family! I love my husband, I love my daughter!"

"You _think_ you love your husband, but you know you don't. He's been biting at your brain for months now, and only the past month has your conscience really started to acknowledge it."

"What do you think you're talking about, Cat? This life is everything I've asked for, and yet you're trying to ruin it by coming along and-"

There was a pause in conversation as something else suddenly stole their attention – the ground was beginning to shake. At first, it could have just been considered a minor tremor, a small earthquake at the most, but it was growing, and as they looked around things began to fall and shatter in a dizzying blur caused by the climbing magnitude of the quake. The rumbling beneath Alice and Cheshire grew louder, and soon they were losing all sense of balance.

"_Go and save your daughter, Alice, quick!" _Cheshire Cat roared across the room as loud as he could.

"_What's happening?"_ Alice cried, although she knew she was the one responsible for causing her world to crumble all around her.

"_No time to ask! You care about your daughter, now go get her!" _

And so Alice did. She rushed out of the room as fast as she could, dust and fragments of ceiling falling all around her, accompanied by the sound of glasses, pots and plates smashing and crashing as she ran past the kitchen. She grabbed hold of the wooden banister and tried her best to keep her grip as the stairs tipped backwards and forwards, until eventually she was at her bedroom door. She flew inside and seized a screaming Lydia from her cot, which was rocking faster than she'd ever been able to do herself – and turned to take one last look at her husband.

Before she could even think about saving him too, half of the ceiling was ripped off by the force of the tremors and collapsed onto the bed, and onto his sleeping body. Alice screeched.

"_NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"_

But the floor had split open, and underneath Alice and Lydia, a whirling white void was sucking them against their will into a realm completely different from the reality they had been used to.

But to Alice, that realm had always been more of a home to her than this one.


	7. Chapter VII

"Can you hear me, Alice?"

They'd fallen into pitch-blackness. At the end of a blindingly white tunnel, Alice and Lydia had found nothing. Or, they could _see_ nothing. But as soon as she heard that wily tone yet again, Alice knew they weren't alone.

"_What on earth just happened, Cat? I demand to know!"_

As if a spotlight had fallen on him, Cheshire materialized in the darkness, glowing like a hologram right in front of them. He was still the only thing visible, though.

"You still haven't realized?" he drawled. He never stopped grinning, even if it was in an inappropriate situation.

Alice wanted to cry with frustration.

"_All right!_ I've realized! I was bored, horribly bored! You were right! And, and-" she paused, checking that she could still feel Lydia in her grasp, "-I didn't… I didn't love him anymore."

Now that she'd admitted it to herself, something went off inside her, very much like the exploding of the jackbomb she'd obtained in the messed-up Wonderland. She collapsed, her daughter still in her arms, and began to weep madly. Even though her eyes were full of tears, some other bright light was becoming obvious, and breaking through the heavy blurriness.

When she looked up and blinked her eyes a few times to clear them, two long, oval-shaped, illuminated golden-framed boudoir mirrors hovered before her, their glass untouched and their frames carved with ornate swirls and rose flowers.

But although these new visions had fabricated, she seemed to completely ignore the mirrors and suddenly began to snipe at Cheshire.

"…But what is this about? Why did you have to kill my husband? How does that solve anything? _What in the bloody hell am I supposed to do now?_" she could feel her heartbeat quickening, her veins expanding to let through the blood that gushed around a disorientated mind.

"No need to curse, Alice… You may feel quite mad now, but let me explain."

Her bottom lip quivered, and she swallowed a dry swallow.

"…Fine."

Cheshire blinked his eyes, took a deep breath, and then began. In an odd way, these actions managed to calm Alice slightly.

"..You said you were horribly bored in the real world. Boredom can do strange things to people, and with many these effects go unnoticed – boredom eats away at a human until they are unable to do anything else except _be_ bored. They know not of any other state of mind, as they are unmotivated to find it. And because boredom is all they feel, all they see, all they taste, touch and hear, it becomes a constant reality for them. There is a part of the mind, though, the _heart _of the mind, which is still keeping you alive, keeping you rooted in this nightmare despite it being so unbearably vapid – how does it do this? Through swelling up with fantasy, imagination, ambition. Without building castles in the sky, a human being cannot live in such a monotonous state for so long. They _have_ to keep dreaming, or they may as well commit suicide…"

"-But if this happens to a lot of people, why haven't I heard reports of others suffering from delusions such as this? Delusions that are hard to distinguish from real life, delusions that have been there most of their lives and involve talking cats and rabbits and visiting a world full of nonsense?"

"Oh Alice, my dear, you're quite different to 'lots of people'… your imagination has always been quite a playground, hasn't it? I'm surprised how long you actually managed to cope with a normal life without losing your marbles earlier-"

"-Are you deliberately being impertinent now? And many people have wild imaginations, so why am I the only one who has to put up with this?"

"...I never said you were the only one. But whether you are alone or not, you're never going to outgrow this, Alice. Whenever something happens that rouses the part of the brain that likes to daydream, you're going to go back to Wonderland. It's inevitable."

There was a pause in their conversation, and that was Alice trying to piece together what the Cheshire Cat had just said. She shook her head violently, doing her best to shake the pieces away.

"No." Alice said firmly, "I haven't needed to go back there for over three years, and the last time I went, that _was _the last time. I'm twenty-five, and I saved the lives of everyone in Wonderland. That's the only reason they wanted me back. Wonderland doesn't need me anymore."

Cheshire's grin suddenly grew slightly wider (if that was possible), and he pointed to the mirrors on either side of him. Alice couldn't see how this was relevant to what she'd just said. A spark then flew out of each silver claw and a picture was painted on the face of each mirror: One looked like a picture of paradise which Alice recognized immediately – grassy hills tinged golden by a bright sun, reflected in a long stream which weaved between giant trees and flowers that almost seemed to smile and bounce with the wind. The other image wasn't one which she was so familiar with – it was a decrepit, elderly lady, bent over in a darkly stained apron, scrubbing a stone path until a stream formed and spread messily through the soil of wilted flowers and dead trees until it made a muddy river.

Cheshire Cat continued to grin.

"…Or do _you _need Wonderland?"


End file.
